Re: Death of Europe? or Birth?

>>Twenty years of economic expansion came to end on September 11, 2001...
>>
>>Since then, United States and Europe are fighting to death in a recessive
>>economic world.
>>
>>Divide and rule is the strategy used by the Emperor to bring down his enemy.
>>
>>And it looks like it is working...
>>
>>More than oil, Iraq is the death of Europe...
>
>An interesting and compelling argument. However, I think a case can
>be made that Iraq may well prove the *birth* of Europe, not its death.
>
> From the end of WW II to the present, (western) Europe and the US
>have been as one on the big questions of war. The first crack in that
>was De Gaulle's France - the first to "go its own way", publicly, on
>military policy. But it stood alone. Now, for the first time, it is
>being publicly joined by others - in fact, by the *majority* of the
>EU.
>
>Europe has always been divided, and the NATO consensus was always a
>consensus from weakness, not from strength - a matter of being ruled.
>The question of Iraq shows an emerging consensus from strength, a
>uniting against that rule. Such a consensus, built on the economic
>core of the EU (France, Germany, Benelux), may well prove the birth
>of Europe. ... If, perhaps, the death of NATO.
>
>Is it not telling that the US would even *bother* going after the
>explicit support of European states - and then can only get those of
>weaker states?
>
>Chris

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Good point!

An inverted evolution of the NATO compared to the EU is historically
interesting. The former born during the war, the later born as a result of
war, as a way to refuse any new war in future European territories.

It is quite strange to see how, finally, the division presented by the
Letter of the Eight is a representation of weak leaders looking after an
Emperor!

Spain avoided to participate in the II WW because Franco was exhausted by
its own dictature.

Italy  was on that time on the side of the German Fuhrer, now he is
American! And Berlusconi has quite similarities with Mussolini,
particularly in the way he treats the medias... Italians did not suffer as
a conquered country but as defeated country associated to willing
conquerors.

UK never get physically conquered even if it suffered from heavy bombings.

Instead France and Germany as well as Benelux have seen enough of their own
blood lost in two different wars.

United States of America have never suffered heavy losses of life, nor
being conquered...

That might be the key of their willingness of war.

Georges